CPD strips president of DePaul-partnered police union of pay
Chicago Police officers cross the street in downtown Chicago, Wednesday, April 22, 2020.
The Chicago Police Department suspended controversial union president John Catanzara from the city’s police force and stripped him of pay for at least the next 30 days. He is currently awaiting a decision by the Chicago Police Board regarding misconduct charges.
“It’ll probably give me more support with members for being attacked,” Catanzara told WGN in a Feb. 10 interview. “It’ll piss (police) off more.”
Catanzara has accumulated at least 35 complaints of misconduct throughout his career. As of Jan. 27, he is facing 18 charges of misconduct — totaling 72 violations of CPD’s Rules and Regulations. The charges cite inflammatory social media posts made by Catanzara, in which he refers to Muslims as “savages” who “all deserve a bullet.”
On Feb. 1, 78 community organizations wrote a letter to the Chicago Police Board and Mayor Lori Lightfoot urging officials to remove Catanzara in light of his possible dismissal.
“Catanzara’s statements about Muslims strongly suggest that he is not able to afford impartial justice to all people in Chicagoand in partnership with community members,” the letter read. “Rather, his social media posts suggest that he enforces the law in accordance with his bigoted views, in which Muslims are unequal to, andless deserving than, other communities.”
Catanzara dismissed the letter from community leaders as “irrelevant” in a later interview with WGN.
The first hearing of Catanzara’s case is scheduled for Feb. 23.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Warren Clarke • Feb 14, 2021 at 4:16 pm
“Nick Cannon’s Racist Rant: White People Are ‘The True Savages,’ ‘Closer to Animals’”
My only question now is when DePaul will be inviting this human piece of exrement, Nick Cannon, to campus to raise the hue and cry and speak about the reparations he’s due for the unconsionable systematic racism that caused him to engage in such truth telling”
Somehow the DePaulia either didn’t know about this, or, more likely, cared less. It does not seem to fit the narrative alive and well on campus. Just reading it causes me to suffer unfettered anxiety while simultaneously causing immense pain extending from my odontoid process to S2. Is there a HIPAA violation anywhere here? Depends on what ambulance chasing wastrel exists to affirm that there is/was.
Pathetic.